


Tower of Stone

by homosexualshadowknights (the_ace_place)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Minecraft diaries - Fandom, aphmau - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23105149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ace_place/pseuds/homosexualshadowknights
Summary: The boat is not small, but it feels cramped.
Relationships: Aphmau & Aaron Lycan, Aphmau & Garroth Ro'Meave, Everyone & Everyone, Katelyn & Travis Valkrum, Vylad Ro'Meave & Laurance Zvahl
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Tower of Stone

The boat is not small, but it feels cramped.

Aaron seldom speaks. He spends his days gazing at the rolling waves with distant eyes, seeing things that have long since been destroyed.

Perhaps it’s the sea, perhaps it’s something else, but Aaron acts differently aboard the ship. He becomes an even more encrypted bundle of contradictions; he softens, yet he raises his guard. He intimidates others, yet he shrinks under Aphmau’s curious gaze.

He takes off a mask just to reveal another underneath.

Katelyn reacts differently. 

The nausea from the sea puts her on edge; she lashes out at those who startle her, even attacking Laurence when he wakes her up so she can eat. He wasn’t injured, and she apologized profusely, but the incident only raised her metaphorical hackles more.

She avoids Vylad. Only Aphmau truly knows why his bright green eyes and dark hair haunt her.

Katelyn does not tell anyone, but she knows she is tense because feeling ill makes her appear fragile. _Weak._

Even now, she’s frightened to show vulnerability, lest her loved ones get hurt. She hasn’t changed a bit. 

Travis is uneasy.

Although he’s somewhat adjusted to living with others, the current situation is a far cry from his years upon years of solitude, and he’s acting as such.

He sometimes forgets. He feels the others’ apprehension when they catch him muttering out loud to himself, but he pretends not to notice their gaze.

In the darkest shadows, he sees a pair of piercing purple eyes, gleaming with cruelty and malice.

He struggles to convince himself to transform into a monster willingly. Afterwards, Katelyn finds him curled in a corner, staring off into nothing with trembling hands. He awakens an hour later to find a blanket around his shoulders. Neither of them speak of it again. 

Vylad is distant.

He’s quiet, aware. Resistant to attempts at casual conversation.

He doesn’t rest often. There’s an unspoken agreement not to mention the nights when he sleeps fitfully and awakens with eyes seeing another world. 

On those days, he stands in solitude, and the mournful tune of his ocarina haunts the ship for hours, until his fingers are raw and he can play no longer.

On those days, the beckoning of the Nether and the fire coursing through his veins return stronger than ever. 

On those days, Laurance is plagued by guilt.

He is also terrified of losing control.

Every time his eyes flash red, Laurance loses another piece of himself. Some days, he looks at his reflection and is unable to recognize the man staring back.

He knows Vylad has a better understanding of what they are, but he does not know how to approach him, after all this time.

Laurance is beginning to spiral, but he does not acknowledge it. They have greater things to worry about. 

Isabell has changed quite a bit recently, in her opinion.

She’s still overwhelmed sometimes, and flinches when others move too quickly. But she’s with people who care about her, aboard a ship that is an incredible feat of engineering, and she’s happy.

And it’s enough.

Lucinda is frustrated.

They’ve sailed around in circles for hours and hours, and by nature she is not one built to wait.

Try as she might, she simply cannot bring herself to understand Travis’s hesitation, and Aphmau’s reluctance to pressure him. 

The memory of Ivan plagues her dreams at night.

She believes that magicks are a beautiful phenomenon. They are no less a part of someone than an arm, leg, or heart; turning her back on her magicks would be to lose a piece of her soul.

So why does Travis reject himself?

Sasha is weary.

She is beginning to tire of sitting for days on end with no opportunity to move, run, jump, _anything_.

She dreads but longs for the embrace of the Nether. 

One day, she wakes up and forgets her name. It isn’t until Laurance comes to speak with her that she remembers.

The tension between the others is amusing.

She is losing herself.

Michi is quieter than usual. She’s caught in her head, daydreaming and planning more often than not.

Hostility aboard the ship is abundant, and it steadily satisfies her need for entropy. Whether it be an argument between Lucinda and Travis, or Sasha and Aphmau, or Katelyn and Laurance, she hears it. And she laughs.

She’s waiting for something. She doesn’t know what.

Chad acts almost the same as before.

But sometimes his smile is strained, and he loses the curious nature that plagues the others on the ship.

He needs to constantly learn, improve, evolve. But they’re trapped going in circles. And he despises it.

Perhaps he should’ve built the boat larger.

Aphmau is haunted by Garroth. 

She longs to see him, but dreads sleeping because she is certain she’ll wake disappointed yet again.

She knows she has a gift, an ability, _something_ , but she feels useless anyway. Most days, she thinks that perhaps the power she possesses should reside in the hands of another.

She is helpless.

She is unworthy.

But on the days when Aphmau wakes with a fading memory of a tree and a face from the past, nothing else matters.

And when they finally reach the island, everything changes.

* * *

It helps some more than others. 

Aaron starts to open up more, especially when he is near Lilith. She opens a side of him that he’d thought had crumbled away long ago. He becomes closer with Aphmau; he’ll occasionally seek her out for a conversation, rather than the other way around. It’s progress. 

Being on solid land does Katelyn some good. She feels less wary around the others, and the tension coiled uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach slowly begins to unwind. She breathes. 

Seeing the Demon Warlock, being exposed as a monster, hurt Travis more than anything. He will never forget Laurance’s betrayed, enraged, _fearful_ expression. But there is a familiarity about the island, just out of reach, that he can’t resist. He moves forward. 

Vylad reflects. He leads Laurance through meditations, and the fire burning through his chest begins to cool. The others learn to listen carefully when he speaks, and understand when he doesn’t. The tune of his ocarina becomes less eerily haunting and more human.

Losing control against Travis unsettled Laurance more deeply than he would like to admit. But slowly, he begins to calm. He talks with Vylad, and starts to come to terms with what he is. His eyes don’t flash red as often, and he smiles more. He feels a strange sense of solace. 

Isabell can’t recall a time when she’s felt happier. She’s helping, she’s useful, but she’s not expected to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. She laughs, now. That’s not something she did before. 

The island is absolutely saturated in magic, and it revitalizes Lucinda. It feels like a pain she hadn’t realized was there has been lifted. Their first encounter on the island finally helped her understand. She wishes it hadn’t come to that. 

Some of the emptiness in Sasha’s eyes begins to fade. She knows she is not a good person, but sometimes she imagines a world where she was able to change. One night, she dreams of a death caused not by betrayal but trickery and she _remembers_ for a fleeting second. 

Michi is still waiting for something. The anticipation eats at her, but she knows that when it comes, it will have been worth it. 

Chad is overjoyed. The island has so many possibilities, so many secrets begging to be documented and analyzed. He barely pauses to take a breath between narrating their surroundings and asking unanswerable questions. Somehow, it relieves the others.

Aphmau feels a lot of things. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there is a strange urge to rejoice at this fact. She doesn’t acknowledge it, though, because she now has a beautiful baby girl, and they’ve reached their destination, and it is as though a brilliant light has reappeared in her life. Perhaps it’s a purpose. 

She is home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy anniversary MCD!!


End file.
